In this week’s Sunday Independent, page three of the “Dispatches” section (page 15 of the newspaper), was dedicated entirely to a package of four articles from the Health-e News Service syndicate, which looked at the crisis of HIV/AIDS and poverty in the Letaba district of the Limpopo province. With varying degrees of overlap, the stories addressed the troubling issues of how the pandemic is creating an overwhelming number of orphans, which in turn leads to the problem of child-headed households; the lack of funding and capacity for most villages to provide basic services, such as health and education, to the growing number of orphaned young people; and the strain on home-based caregivers and other volunteers. The articles also all focused, in one way or another, on the role and response of the Catholic Church in Letaba.

What was glaringly absent from the collection of articles—especially when those interviewed spoke of the alarmingly high rates of new infections among young people, and how people dying of AIDS-related diseases were becoming increasingly younger—was any mention of the Church’s refusal to promote condoms as an effective means of prevention against HIV.

In fact, the word “condom” did not appear anywhere in any of the four articles.

“ ‘We can definitely see that the people who are dying are younger. We bury very few old people. Most of the deceased are between nine months and 45 years old,’ said Hartzenberg.

“Mauritz de Bruin, who has been running the mortuary for the past 11 years, concurs: ‘In the past we had mostly old people. Now it’s mostly young people in there,’ he says, motioning to the four white fridge doors behind him.”

In spite of the fact that it is young people who are dying in this district and the highest HIV-prevalence rates are among young people in South Africa, the author does not raise the question of possible problems with the Church’s approach to prevention.

The article’s author vaguely addresses the issue of the church’s prevention methods here:

“ ‘I said to myself that it’s got to hit South Africa, too, and we tried to run awareness programmes, but people laughed at us. We got nowhere. Nobody was interested at the time,’ recalls Slattery, who is adamant that the solution lies in promoting changes in behaviour and giving people hope.

“ ‘The solution ultimately lies in building family life and a sense of respect. We need to see Aids in the context of making us a stronger nation. Maybe we need to say that what doesn’t kill us will make us stronger,’ he says.”

So despite the rising rates of infection among young people in his district, Slattery is still “adamant” that prevention efforts should be focused on promoting changes in behaviour. The article’s author should have asked Slattery if his mind would change if infection rates continued to climb and young people continued to die at such an alarming rate.

Without taking anything away from all of the great work the Catholic Church does in Letaba and similar areas across the country, especially in terms of treatment and providing access to ARVs, it’s still a little mind-boggling how their potentially harmful approach to prevention is never raised in any of the articles.

I suppose that since the articles deal with the Catholic Church, its position on condoms or non-abstinence-based prevention programs in general can be, to a certain extent, taken for granted. But there are exceptions: some Catholic priests have promoted condom use in the context of the epidemic. Regardless, the questions should be asked.

Do the young people in Letaba ever ask about condoms? If they do, how do the archdiocese, the volunteers and the ground-level service providers respond to those questions?

Do all of the service providers believe in the Church’s approach to prevention? Do any of them feel constrained to abide by Church doctrine even if it contradicts their own ideology or intellect? How do they cope with that? Do the service providers simply believe that since there are so many infected people who need treatment and support, and the Church is in a position to provide that support, they will work with the Church despite their ideological conflict?

Has anyone in the archdiocese ever suggested that condoms could help lower HIV-incidence rates among young people? Have they talked about it, even informally?

It would’ve been nice to see at least some of those questions asked.

While the Church’s work in Letaba is clearly substantial, and they are obviously engaged in significant and worthwhile support for people living with HIV and Aids, their prevention efforts should be challenged. It isn’t enough that civil society organizations, such as the Tzaneen archdiocese, respond to the crisis of the epidemic, but that they respond in ways that actually make a difference.

Although it’s important to highlight the efforts of any group fighting HIV/AIDS and supporting people living with the disease, journalists must still be critical of their approach.

Brendan Kennedy

Articles discussed in this blog:

“Death has become ‘normal’ in Limpopo” Sunday Independent, 9 September 2007, p. 15, Health-e News Service

http://www.sundayindependent.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=4025025

“There’s fun and laughter at a centre toddlers call home” Sunday Independent, 9 September 2007, p. 15, Health-e News Service

(subscribers only)

“Care for those with nothing” Sunday Independent, 9 September 2007, p. 15, Health-e News Service

(subscribers only)

“Rural schools shoulder Aids-orphan burden as farm jobs dwindle” Sunday Independent, 9 September 2007, p.15, Health-e News Service

(subscribers only)

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